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HomeMy Public PortalAboutPlanning Board -- 2010-05-10 Minutes\o~\~\°,~ae W s r"~ii,,~~~ O ~'~ ~~~ ~ ~F ''~ Town Of Brewster o4Q ~ % >, N~ $ = 2198 Main Street _ ~ ~ ~`~ D ~ Brewster, Massachusetts 02631-1898 ~~ ~ ~~, ~ __ ~' ~ ~ ~ (508) 896-3701 ext. 133 ~'~ - - - ~ ~` ~ ' FAX (508) 896-8089 '''~~~~/~//I Ff Q R' 9 ~ Pay \~\~\O\~\\~ \\ II ~ I I I I l l 11 N 1111111 l 11 1 l 11 \ \\ Date Approved as written: July 26, 2010; Vote 6-0-1 (abstain Skidmore) Comprehensive Water Planning Committee TOWN OF BREWSTER MINUTES OF COMPREHENSIVE WATER PLANNING COMMITTEE REGULAR MEETING Monday, May 10, 2010 at 4:30 P.M. Brewster Town Office Building Pat Hughes convened the Comprehensive Water Planning Committee meeting at 4:35 pm in the Brewster Town Office Building with members Joanne Hughes, John Lipman, Elizabeth Taylor, Dave Benn"~tt and Jane Johnson. Amy Usowski arrived at 5:05 pm. Also Present: Sue Leven, Ed Lewis, Chris Miller, Jim Gallagher, Russ Schell and Peter Johnson A. Citizen's Forum Opened to the public -Russ requested that he reserve his time at the end of the meeting. Leven: Mentioned an all day seminar on Saturday in Barnstable regarding wastewater management. She also mentioned that the Town Meeting approved an additional $100,000 for the next phase of the water planning. B. Follow-up with CDM 1. Update meeting with Integrated Water Resource Management Plan consultant, Camp Dresser & McKee (CDM). Present from CDM: Dave Young, Project Manager Mary Barry, Public Outreach Rob Musci, P.E, Project Engineer P. Hughes: Opened the floor to CDM 1. Overview of Project and Schedule Young: Asked the committee to allow them to go through the presentation and then field questions at the end. The information is all preliminary information and they are looking for the Towns feedback. It is not final. Next community Meeting -target June 3~d a. Project meetings CDM met with the Town the second week of April -they have been reviewing the information and data they obtained. Also, they looked at many GIS maps and Bernadette 5-10-10 www.TOWN.BREWST'ER.MA.US Page 1 of6 Kolb has been out to meet with DEP to obtain some additional information. The ponds information reflects all that data. A handout and many spreadsheets summarizing the data were distributed to the members. 2. Project Status Update a. Discuss draft watersheds evaluation process b. Discuss draft ponds evaluation process Essentially, CDM has broken the data into 4 matrixes: 1. TPie Watersheds -DCPC, Zone II's -there is a sketch and CDM is starting to come up with a ranking system. 2. MEP reports 3. The Ponds matrix with data on water quality or other areas impacting the quality 4. The Ponds with no data -typically the small ponds. 1. Watershed Matrix: The first matrix is the watershed -purpose and rankings were presented. Rankings were evaluated on 10 criteria; The 2 factors that were weighted in the rankings were the 'Coning and Depth to Groundwater. CDM took the raw data and sorted it based on a 1-5 ranking. Spreadsheets showing the first draft of the rankings were presented. This is where the Committee can change some of the rankings - ie Zone 2 is of a higher importance and can impact the overall findings. The Map showing the watersheds and the water quality rankings -the red color needs nitrogen reduction -the green color not as much. Again the colors can change with a change in the ranking criteria. CDM wanted to show a trend. Young: This is a lot of information; Brewster has 50 watersheds -ranked on 10 criteria. CDM has not had a chance to do any sensitivity analyses. And it is important to note that all the criteria have been ranked equally (x1). Lipman: Recognized that it was a lot of information and wondered if there was a simpler way to look at the data - a 2 column analysis (i.e. the least protected areas to the most protected areas). Young: agreed it was complex but this is where they need some more input from the Town. Lipman: are there any centralized wastewater systems in Brewster? Lewis: Pleasant Bay Nursing Home Young: That has not been incorporated at this point because it is an alternative solution. Leven: the Zone 2 and the DCPC implies a higher level of protection -and it looks like that area is not protected. However, there are existing protections in place -the red makes it confusing. Musci: Zone 2 and DCPC could be flagged on the side. Bennett: Doesn't want to imply that these areas are impaired. Start to overlay the water quality data on the maps -would like to see the data in order to show some credibility. 5-10-t0 www.TOWN.BREWSTER.MA.iJS Page 2 of6 Young: this is just based on the criteria defined -the water quality data presentation will show the information you may be looking for. Bennett: low permeability in the industrial area may be a good thing for those areas. Doesn't like adding any more factors -likes the Zone 2/DCPC area shown in red. It indicates that this is an area to pay attention too. Musci: this is the first pass and doesn't reflect any weighting. Young: CDM was trying to show 3 different rankings: 1. red needs protection; 2 is the middle of the road; 3 area looks ok; again remember all rankings are equal. What are the most critical criteria to the Town of Brewster? Bennett: This is just the summary of the data we have right now inn the watersheds 2. MEP Matrix: There are 5 rankings in this matrix: A ranking of 5 needs nitrogen reduction and then it goes down to a 1 which is not limited by nitrogen. A single spreadsheet showing the rankings in Brewster was distributed. The only area that shows up as a 5 is Pleasant Bay. In reference to the colors assigned: The Red color indicates that nitrogen needs to be taken away Green areas -can add nitrogen Yellow -unsure -awaiting information from MEP and may be able to add Bennett: looking at some of the watersheds in Pleasant Bay and they don't discharge into the Bay Leven: the report shows the whole watershed it doesn't breakdown some of the smaller watersheds Bennett: in Brewster-the zoning in that area is 2 acre; Orleans may be'/4 acre -how do you determine who is responsible for that area? Young: this is just showing the data - it is not intended to show the alternative solutions. It is his understanding that the Town will need to remove a certain numbe r of pounds of nitrogen from the watershed. Taylor: it has already been done -the town knows now that it needs to remove a percentage. 3. Ponds Matrix The matrix deals with actual water quality data that we have and also data that we may not have (i.e. pond is near a cranberry bog, is this a swimming beach) The handouts further identified the purpose of this review, and then categorized the purposes and CDM showed the evaluation process. The data sources and state guidelines were presented. CDM/Town of Brewster only has data on 29 ponds. There are 53 ponds with no water quality data. CDM presented the indicators of pond health and the spreadsheet with the data. CDM identified special factors of concern for the ponds that they did not have data for. Ideally they would have information on all the ponds and they could be put into one table. Based on these tracks CDM then ranked the ponds by category. 5-10-10 www.TOWN.BREWSTER.MA.US Page 3 of6 Category 1 shows the most concern -Walkers Pond area. Leven is doing some historical research - at one point that was an industrial part of town. She is just starting to look at this now. The only thing CDM has found so far is the cranberry bogs and the fact that these ponds are all connected. Johnson: Most of the data they compiled is in the Walkers Pond area and she wonders if that is skewing the results somewhat. Category 1A -next tier down. Long Pond is shown and it is important to note that the data is before the alum treatment. Category 2 -these ponds are spread out a bit throughout town Further categories were broken down to level 3 with a limited concern Category 4 - no data on these ponds -tend to be smaller ponds Hughes: any further discussion on this? Leven: If anyone thinks of any questions feel free to send to her and she will forward to CDM. Bennett: Isn't there a program that has been developed that ranks the criteria? Some sort of statistical analysis that is already available. Young: No, it is really community driven. CDM has have spent a whole day working with a community to establish a priority. Bennett: In Brewster there is also well data - is that ever going tc be presented to the committee - it is public information and you can look at the information and then overlay criteria. Mr. Bennett does not want to make any assumptions; wants to make decisions based on the data. Young: you are going to find that the largest sources of nitrogen are the septic systems; Bennett: we all have an intuitive feeling but he does not want that to impact the results. We want to critically evaluate the data. Miller: we know with ponds -the phosphorus is not coming from the septic systems yet - it is a result of stormwater runoff. 3. Evaluation of Blue Water Satellite Information a. Information received b. Issues of concern Musci: presented an overview of the results to date. Blue Water gave them the first pass results and it showed a difference from the existing data on hand. In order to help understand the difference, Blue Water at their own expense, did some additional passes in order to validate the images they submitted. The 3 rounds of data seemed to support the scans. The end result is that Blue Water appears to be an effective screening tool. Lewis: In order to effectively compare, what good is data that is 9 years old? P. Hughes: Felt that if this is good data that can be applied for future use and then all the field work would not be required. Blue Water offers a new technology which can be validated by the data we already have. We wanted to make sure that the information matched with that field data we have on hand. 5-10-10 www.1'OWN.BREWSTER.MA.US Page 4 ofb Taylor: Questioned some of the colors shown on the satellite images i.e. Walkers Pond doesn't show as a low depth pond. Lipman: Thinks the images may be useful but some of the technology may need additional fine tuning. Leven: it may be worth looking at something more recent to see what you can determine. Usowski left at 6:30. Young: Agreed, this is new technology which Blue Water has just been able to release the information 4. Next Steps in Integrated Water Resources Management Plan (IWRMP) Process a. Refine watershed and pond evaluation process b. Refine watersheds, ponds, drinking water and estuary needs Young: they are going to keep honing in on the matrix. It is very complex and a lot of data -need to be able to convey this information to the general public. P. Hughes: reiterated that if anyone has any questions/comments to please forward to Sue. 5. Community Meeting No. 2 -Target June 3rd a. Public relations b. Information focus c. Logistics Barry: Has given Sue some of the press release information -Would like the same set up the same as last time. Newspapers are effective; the posters in Town Hall and the Library are also important. Sue will forward to the committee to review. Need to get something out there to let everyone know of the 2"d meeting. Bennett: Do we want them to do any ranking prior to the next meeting? Young: Based on the discussion tonight, CDM would take a look at the information and play around with it to see what the results are. Bennett: some of the density doesn't make sense -please take a look at it. Musci: that was a red flag to them and they are planning on lookii~~g at it further. They thought perhaps there were a lot of buildings there and it may impact the area. 6. Next CWPC Meeting With CDM a. May 24, 2010 Russ: had a comment about the first part of the presentation -the red parts as shown. The red area normally is the nitrogen sensitive area. The town has restrictions in place with the bylaws and the health regulations that adequately protect that area. On the other hand the Pleasant Bay area is subject to criteria that is sensitive to a different level of impact (i.e. algae plume) Mucsi: Reminded everyone that is just the first pass at this and everything is seen as equal. 5-10-10 www.TOWN.BREWSTER.MA.US Page 5 of6 P. Hughes: This is an important first step and the committee needs to evaluate and provide input back to CDM. Russ: Requested that the matrix models be calibrated vuith actual data. Bennett s-to-to ned to adjourn. Seconded by Lipman. Vote: All Aye. fitted, mmi ,~~ ~, .~, I. ~.I j-r'I :~ ::r_~~ ~ „ , ~ - I-rl r- I ~ ~ a. ^ -i j ~7 ~_ :' ~.~ ~ .-r, :-~' _~ Clerk www.TOWN.BREWSTER.MA.US Page 6 of 6